ike to be robbed of their spoil, and I
have engaged to return you. You will certainly be burned, if I do.
But that rests with you. You have information of value. Reply to my
questions, and talk straight, and all will be well. You shall stay in
Detroit. Now, what is the American force in Kentucky? And how many
men are there in Fort McIntosh?"

Fort McIntosh was an American post erected only last spring at the
mouth of the Big Beaver River, beside the Ohio twenty-six miles below
Fort Pitt.

"Lor' bless you," laughed Simon. "I'm nothin' but a private soldier,
else a scout, and 'tain't my business to deal in such large matters.
So I can't answer your questions, in any way, shape or manner. Fact
is, as you can plainly see, I've enough to do to look out for myself."

Captain Drouillard eyed him, and laughed also.

"I believe you," he said. "You've made a bad bargain of it, at that.
Perhaps so have I."

But they went on, to Detroit.

Simon was saved. The British did not send him back to the Indians.
They sent presents, instead, and kept him as a prisoner of war. His
arm healed, he grew strong, and stayed there from this October until
the next June, 1779. He was by no means the only such prisoner in old
Detroit. A great many others, taken in battle or on the trail, were
here; among them, the majority of the ten Daniel Boone men sold by
Chief Black Fish a year ago, to the British.

He and two of the Daniel Boone men planned to escape together. Mrs.
Harvey, the wife of an Indian trader, agreed to aid them. She was
particularly fond of Simon, who never complained and who had suffered
so much.

It was more than two hundred miles to the nearest post on the Ohio
River. Every mile led through the country of war Indians. They would
be only too glad to catch Simon again. So he must have guns for
himself and his companions. Mrs. Harvey said that she would get the
guns.

On the night of June 3, Simon, in his quarters, heard a rap on his door
and a low voice. He opened. Mrs. Harvey was there. She beckoned him
into the darkness, and spoke rapidly. She was out of breath from
running.

"Sh! I have the guns--three. They are Indians' guns. I picked the
best three while the Indians are on a big drunk. They stacked their
arms near the house. I've hidden what I took, in the pea patch in my
garden. Come at midnight. You will find a ladder waiting for you, by
which to climb the garden wall. The guns will